First Steps Review

I have played occasionally on my brother’s Oculus Rift over the years, but I recently got to play on an Oculus Quest for the first time.

As a seasoned VR vet, I was excited to test out the Quest.

The setup lived up to my expectations of being easy and not requiring much work – it was literally plugin/pair controller and go.

I was surprised by how comfortable it was to wear for what felt like hours, with no discomfort in the straps or weight of the unit.

As I started up my first game, First Steps, I noticed that my character didn’t move when I moved my body – although there were no visible sensors on me (that I could tell). This immediately threw me off, as I expected everything to track perfectly.

I found out later that the player must point their controller at a sensor in order to move – which makes sense, but not everyone has enough free hands for this! Other than this aspect of the game being frustratingly difficult to play, immersing yourself in VR with the Quest is easy.

The graphics are fantastic; it is mostly smooth, but there were times when I would see frame rate drops in certain detailed areas (for example when surrounded by nature).

I had my doubts about the battery life but found that you can play for hours without worrying about it dying out on you in the middle of your game.

The screen door effect is minimal, which was a relief after seeing other VR headsets that have this issue worse.

Last but not least, the controller tracking was mostly accurate except for one particular instance where my controller wandered far away from the center of my character’s hand – making it look like I had long fingers.

I also found that the Quest was able to pick up my movements whole playing without ever having to move (i.e. turning around or moving my hands), which I hadn’t experienced anywhere else, but this may be attributed to how close I sat to the camera.

All in all, it’s fun to play games with friends and family who are not as familiar with VR as you are, but I wouldn’t recommend it for more serious gamers.

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